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From "A doctor enjoys Sherlock Holmes", by Edward J. Van Liere, 1959
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"...As to the drugs used in Watson's day, only about a dozen are mentioned. Among them were ammonia, amyl nitrite, brandy, caffeine, ether, chloroform, iodoform, carbolic acid, curare, and silver nitrate. A survey made in England in the early part of this century showed that physicians considered from twenty to twenty-five drugs necessary to practice medicine satisfactorily. If a survey were made today, it is likely that more would be listed, because during the past few years potent antibiotic agents have been discovered and great strides have been made in chemotherapy.

Oliver Wendell Holmes, the famous poet-physician, if living today, could not write as he did in the last century: 'If the whole materia medica (excepting opium and ether) as now used could be sunk to the bottom of the sea it would be all the better for mankind--and all the worse for the fishes.' "